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Roasted Thai Eggplant Curry

I
was craving for fresh water prawns and crabs but lazy me went to the wrong
place to shop and found myself buying Thai eggplant and herbs instead. So I ended up making eggplant curry and the
prawns and crabs are momentarily forgotten.

Thai
eggplants come in either green or purple and they’re smaller and plump- cute,
actually. I started by splitting the
eggplants in half with stems on and oven-roasting them after a light canola oil
massage and sprinkling of salt and freshly cracked black pepper. It took 35 minutes to soften them at 375⁰F. I used two small bags about a dozen in each if my memory serves me right.

Then
comes prepping the other ingredients: julienne a 2-inch piece of fresh ginger; slice thinly the white part of lemon grass to come up with at least a tablespoon; slice a medium purple onion (only
because I ran out of yellow ones); crush about 6 cloves of garlic, have a can of the best coconut milk available Mae Ploy to which a cup and a half of water will be added; diced tomatoes- about 2 pieces if big and devoid of seeds and a bunch of fresh Thai
basil. I used about 2-3 tablespoons of yellow curry paste for
this dish and 2 chicken cubes.

In
a non-stick pan, I sautéed the onion, garlic, ginger and lemon grass with the
yellow curry paste in 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat.

The objective is to cook these with the
yellow curry paste before adding the coconut milk.I added a cup and half of water, 2 chicken cubes and a
tablespoon of red pepper flakes followed by two tablespoons grated sugar palm.

Allow to simmer for about 8 minutes- stir and then taste if it needs salt or fish sauce. I didn't have to add more because of the chicken cubes and curry paste. Add
the eggplant and tomatoes and then the fresh basil. I added the tomatoes almost towards the end because I don't want them all wilted and almost pureed. Serve with steamed white rice.
Enjoy!

This
dish requires a cooling drink so I made my Coco-Pandan Dream made from fresh
coconut water and half and half sweetened with coconut simple syrup; added pandan
boba and of course, the shaved young coconut meat. What a refreshing
finish to a spicy and delicious meal!